I gave my second GMAT exam today and scored 700. I am quite relieved that it is over. I would have probably liked a point or two more in the quant section but I am more than happy for what I got. Thanks to Eric for this excellent site and all those who shared their experiences on the site and helped me solve questions.
Background: Indian IT professional with 12 years of experience. Have a degree in commerce and reasonably good in Maths.
Preparation:
Early this year, got the idea to pursue an EMBA. So started looking at the GMAT. Based on the recommendation from a friend, joined Princeton course in Jan and completed the course in two months. It was a good basic course and the instructor was helpful. But after reviewing the materials (SC book) and practice test of MGMAT, I think MGMAT is far ahead and closer to GMAT. Princeton is good introduction but not great. I initially wanted to give exam in May after the course but knew by April that I was not prepared. So I took a break. Restarted the preparation in July and gave the first exam in September and scored 630 (Q46, V31), AWA 4. I was quite disappointed. But the result was fair I guess. In the verbal section, I was never sure if I was answering correct though in quant I knew I was doing good. Practice test results:
PR CAT 1: 620
PR CAT 2: 580
PR CAT 3: 610
MGMAT CAT1: 630
MGMAT CAT2: 620
GMAT CAT 1: 660
GMAT CAT 2: 580
GMAT CAT 1 repeat: 740 (did find quite a few repeat questions)
GMAT CAT 2 repeat: 750 (did find quite a few repeat questions)
Then browsed this site again and found Sahil's notes and some CR and RC tips. In addition, read Mayonnai and Stacey's posts on the need to focus on Quality over Quantity. I restarted seriously in November and took leave of 4 weeks (though I effectively utilized two weeks only due to sickness and personal work). Read SC from MGMAT. Read CR/RC, from Kaplan's book. The CR material in Kaplan is very good. It really helped me to understand the common assumptions and weaknesses in an argument. I became more confident about my answers in CR. Though RC section was good in Kaplan, I was not comfortable with their approach of making notes and skimming. I focussed on understanding the passage by reading it even if takes 4-5 minutes, as in next 2-3 minutes, I could answer the questions. I really slowed down in RC that increased my confidence and success rate.
As my verbal was weak, I focussed primarily on CR/RC and SC. Occassionally I would do quant questions to be in touch. I was aiming to get a score above 660 only, so thought that improving verbal would be enough. Just two weeks ago, I started giving practice exams.
MGMAT CAT 5: 690 (Q47, V37)
MGMAT CAT 6: 710 (Q42, V44)
GMAT CAT1: 700 (Q48, V36)
GMAT CAT2: 720 (Q49, V36)
Though I was scoring near 700, my scores were not consistent. Hence I was not confident. But I noted that I was becoming more confident in verbal section. The Kaplan's CR approach and SC notes/MGMAT SC were helping me to find the errors. Yesterday, I went through the sample AWA essays on this website. Prepared a simple template and read 15 essays of different types to get some common points.
Exam:
Reached the center on time and took up the AWA section. The argument section was okay. Had more points but ran out of time. I was satisfied with the issue essay. Overall, I hope I do better than the previous exam.
Quant section started and I got stumped on the first question. Find the length of a line (hypotenuse) based on an equation (coordinate geometry). May be I was doing some silly mistake but I was not getting any of the available answers and wasted 6-7 minutes. I guessed and moved on. But after that the story remained the same. Questions were coming on the topics that I was uncomfortable with and I was trying to balance between getting right answers and keeping pace with the time by guessing the questions. In the end I was getting couple of questions that were difficult and couple of them really easy. I thought that this time I blew up my quant section. I was cursing myself that I did not give enough importance to quant section and focussed mostly on verbal.
I took the break and was very disappointed. I asked another person how did his quant go and he said it went well. I thought let me make the most of my verbal section as any way I am not aiming very high and I might still pull it off.
The verbal section started with CR and I spotted the error. Couple of SC and CR questions were also fine. The first RC was a midsize para. So I did it in reasonable time. Till 25 questions, I was feeling good that the questions are not very easy and I am spotting most of the errors except few guesses. Around Q 30, I got a really long paragraph of RC (4 para I guess and I had to scroll down) on a scientific topic. As I was doing well on time front, I followed the normal method of understanding the passage and answering it. I stayed ahead of time till the end. I had 2 minutes left in the end.
Finally the screen came stating you have 10 minutes to decide if you want the get the score or cancel it. I prayed to God to be slightly lenient and consider the overall effort I have put in the GMAT preparation and not just my performance in the quant section today
When the score came, I was very thankful to God. I also thanked my wife and son who gave me the time to study. I am very relieved. I met with the same person again and asked him his score. He said 540 and was disappointed. I promptly asked him to visit this site and it will make wonders for him!
I am joining a new company tomorrow. So 2008 will go in establising my self. I plan to do EMBA may be at the end of 2009. Hopefully this score keeps me in the race even at that time.
Thanks again to Eric and others on this site and all the best to everyone!
You all can definitely beat the gmat,
JP
Background: Indian IT professional with 12 years of experience. Have a degree in commerce and reasonably good in Maths.
Preparation:
Early this year, got the idea to pursue an EMBA. So started looking at the GMAT. Based on the recommendation from a friend, joined Princeton course in Jan and completed the course in two months. It was a good basic course and the instructor was helpful. But after reviewing the materials (SC book) and practice test of MGMAT, I think MGMAT is far ahead and closer to GMAT. Princeton is good introduction but not great. I initially wanted to give exam in May after the course but knew by April that I was not prepared. So I took a break. Restarted the preparation in July and gave the first exam in September and scored 630 (Q46, V31), AWA 4. I was quite disappointed. But the result was fair I guess. In the verbal section, I was never sure if I was answering correct though in quant I knew I was doing good. Practice test results:
PR CAT 1: 620
PR CAT 2: 580
PR CAT 3: 610
MGMAT CAT1: 630
MGMAT CAT2: 620
GMAT CAT 1: 660
GMAT CAT 2: 580
GMAT CAT 1 repeat: 740 (did find quite a few repeat questions)
GMAT CAT 2 repeat: 750 (did find quite a few repeat questions)
Then browsed this site again and found Sahil's notes and some CR and RC tips. In addition, read Mayonnai and Stacey's posts on the need to focus on Quality over Quantity. I restarted seriously in November and took leave of 4 weeks (though I effectively utilized two weeks only due to sickness and personal work). Read SC from MGMAT. Read CR/RC, from Kaplan's book. The CR material in Kaplan is very good. It really helped me to understand the common assumptions and weaknesses in an argument. I became more confident about my answers in CR. Though RC section was good in Kaplan, I was not comfortable with their approach of making notes and skimming. I focussed on understanding the passage by reading it even if takes 4-5 minutes, as in next 2-3 minutes, I could answer the questions. I really slowed down in RC that increased my confidence and success rate.
As my verbal was weak, I focussed primarily on CR/RC and SC. Occassionally I would do quant questions to be in touch. I was aiming to get a score above 660 only, so thought that improving verbal would be enough. Just two weeks ago, I started giving practice exams.
MGMAT CAT 5: 690 (Q47, V37)
MGMAT CAT 6: 710 (Q42, V44)
GMAT CAT1: 700 (Q48, V36)
GMAT CAT2: 720 (Q49, V36)
Though I was scoring near 700, my scores were not consistent. Hence I was not confident. But I noted that I was becoming more confident in verbal section. The Kaplan's CR approach and SC notes/MGMAT SC were helping me to find the errors. Yesterday, I went through the sample AWA essays on this website. Prepared a simple template and read 15 essays of different types to get some common points.
Exam:
Reached the center on time and took up the AWA section. The argument section was okay. Had more points but ran out of time. I was satisfied with the issue essay. Overall, I hope I do better than the previous exam.
Quant section started and I got stumped on the first question. Find the length of a line (hypotenuse) based on an equation (coordinate geometry). May be I was doing some silly mistake but I was not getting any of the available answers and wasted 6-7 minutes. I guessed and moved on. But after that the story remained the same. Questions were coming on the topics that I was uncomfortable with and I was trying to balance between getting right answers and keeping pace with the time by guessing the questions. In the end I was getting couple of questions that were difficult and couple of them really easy. I thought that this time I blew up my quant section. I was cursing myself that I did not give enough importance to quant section and focussed mostly on verbal.
I took the break and was very disappointed. I asked another person how did his quant go and he said it went well. I thought let me make the most of my verbal section as any way I am not aiming very high and I might still pull it off.
The verbal section started with CR and I spotted the error. Couple of SC and CR questions were also fine. The first RC was a midsize para. So I did it in reasonable time. Till 25 questions, I was feeling good that the questions are not very easy and I am spotting most of the errors except few guesses. Around Q 30, I got a really long paragraph of RC (4 para I guess and I had to scroll down) on a scientific topic. As I was doing well on time front, I followed the normal method of understanding the passage and answering it. I stayed ahead of time till the end. I had 2 minutes left in the end.
Finally the screen came stating you have 10 minutes to decide if you want the get the score or cancel it. I prayed to God to be slightly lenient and consider the overall effort I have put in the GMAT preparation and not just my performance in the quant section today
When the score came, I was very thankful to God. I also thanked my wife and son who gave me the time to study. I am very relieved. I met with the same person again and asked him his score. He said 540 and was disappointed. I promptly asked him to visit this site and it will make wonders for him!
I am joining a new company tomorrow. So 2008 will go in establising my self. I plan to do EMBA may be at the end of 2009. Hopefully this score keeps me in the race even at that time.
Thanks again to Eric and others on this site and all the best to everyone!
You all can definitely beat the gmat,
JP
